Linguist Works on Ray-Ban Meta AI Glasses

Name: Alice Shen (she/her)

PhD: Linguistics, University of California Berkeley, 2020

What was your main area of research?

I studied how being bilingual impacts the way people produce and perceive speech. I specifically focused on whether speaking multiple languages makes speech perception slower. I also found that speaking both Mandarin Chinese and English resulted in unique tone/pitch patterns when code-switching between the two languages.

What is your current job?

I am a Linguistic Engineer at Meta in Burlingame, California.

I work on automatic speech recognition for the Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses. I conduct linguistic analyses to ensure that the AI assistant is successfully fulfilling user requests and make recommendations for improvements in all locales where we sell the glasses.

What is your favorite thing about your job?

I love that I can still do phonetics (my primary academic research area) but in the context of NLP/AI and creating products that people use

What is the most important skill you developed or experience you had during your PhD that now helps you in your current position?

Learning to do data analysis (which included learning Python and R)

How did you build the skills necessary for your current role?

I took computational linguistics and computer science courses, learned to code to be able to analyze dissertation data, and taught classes which was helpful for learning communication skills.

How did you find this position? What were the career steps you took to get to where you are now?

An alumnus from my PhD program reached out with the job posting, encouraging me to apply.

PhD graduate ➡️ Facebook summer intern/contractor ➡️ Reed College Visiting Assistant Professor ➡️ Grammarly Analytical Linguist ➡️ Meta Linguistic Engineer

If someone is interested in a similar role, what would you recommend they start doing now to prepare?

Learn to code (e.g. Python, SQL, regex) and do data analysis (e.g., pandas, R). Additionally, make sure to modify your CV to a resume before applying.

Why did you decide to not pursue a career in academia?

Academia negatively impacted my mental health and limited my options for where to live. It was a moderately difficult decision given how much I loved my research, but was made easier by the fact that I also enjoyed NLP/AI work.

What advice do you have for someone getting their PhD and looking to pursue a career outside of academia?

Connect to alumni and cold contact people on LinkedIn, get referrals to apply to jobs, and make sure that your resume and interview answers frame your academic experience in terms of the industry role you're applying for.